Typical hospital patient supports are subjected to daily use by various hospital personnel and patients. Patients, medical professionals, maintenance staff and others operate and move patient supports according to the various requirements such as patient needs, and stresses which require sturdy components and reliable measurements.
The headboard needs to be moved or removed often for various tasks and in emergency situations. A removable headboard must be lightweight and sturdy so as to facilitate easy removal and replacement by the user. There is a need for a light, sturdy headboard which is easy to use and cost-effective to produce.
The footboard often is also used to hang other equipment on the top rail or with another device which is attached to and hangs from the footboard. The placement of such equipment can obscure a reading area or control panel located on the footboard. Furthermore, such equipment may fall off the headboard or other device, thereby resulting in damage. There is a need for an integral equipment holder within a footboard to accommodate the requirement to hang equipment but without compromising access to a control panel on the footboard or risking damage to the equipment.
The change in a patient's weight is recorded by medical professionals for various reasons at different times during a hospital stay. Scales are incorporated in patient supports which can weigh a load such as the patient. When load cells are used in the patient support, the load readings in a horizontal patient support are not the same as those in an articulated patient support. The location of a patient's centre of gravity has been further used in a patient detection system, such as the system described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,822,571 (the '571 patent) which issued to Conway on Nov. 23, 2004. In order to obtain an accurate weight measurement, patients who are in an articulated patient support often have to be repositioned to the horizontal, which is inconvenient and disruptive. There is a need to measure and a patient's weight on a patient support independent of the patient support's angular position.
Hospital patient supports currently are equipped with a number of complex mechanical and electrical subsystems that provide various functions such as positioning, weight monitoring, and other functions related to the patient's care. Despite their inherent complexity, these systems need to be easy to operate by the user. The ease of use and operation is of critical importance, particularly in emergency situations. Due to the complexity and required minimal downtime for these patient supports, the status of such systems needs to be constantly monitored, which currently is performed by technicians in order to ensure the desired functionality of the patient support is maintained. This form of monitoring and potentially diagnosis of problems with a patient support can be both time consuming and costly.
Early designs of adjustable patient supports often employed the concept of a hand crank and gearing to adjust the height of a patient support. Such manual systems suffer from the need for considerable physical effort to adjust the patient support height. Other designs include elevation systems incorporating mechanical jacks using hydraulic piston cylinders or screw drives to adjust the height of the hospital patient support. Such hydraulic systems are known to be relatively expensive and prone to leakage. Additionally, prior mechanical systems suffer from excessive complexity, excessive size, a lack of load capacity, and manufacturing difficulties.
Hospital patient support siderails of the prior art comprise support arms, which form undesirable pinch points for users. The movement of such siderails from the deployed to the stowed positions is often hampered by siderail oscillations. The siderail falls due to gravity and the movement can jar the patient support and disturb patients.
In addition, the patient support apparatus of the prior art relies on batteries to provide all power to the patient support's electronic systems. When the battery power runs out, the battery itself must be recharged before power can be supplied to the electronics. This is problematic in circumstances where the life of the battery itself has run out or in settings where a suitable power supply to recharge the battery is not available.
Currently, nurses and other hospital staff hang pumps (or other hospital equipment) on the top edge of the footboards of hospital patient supports. Since footboards were not designed to support the hanging of pumps (or other hospital equipment), this current footboards, generates patient support motions and causes damage to pumps (and other equipment) that fall from its hangers.
Ordinarily, there is a tendency for detached headboards or footboards placed in an upright position against an object or structure to slip, thereby causing the headboard or footboard to fall and potentially suffer damage. This is a particularly acute concern in the situation of a medical emergency during which headboards and footboards may need to be removed and set aside in haste. In a busy hospital, a discarded headboard or footboard that has fallen to the floor creates a tripping hazard to both staff, who may be carrying equipment or medication and thus have an obstructed view of the floor, and patients, who may have compromised mobility owing to illness. Preventing slippage, therefore, reduces the likelihood of personal injury stemming from hastily removed headboards and footboards.
Therefore there is a need for a control and diagnostic system for integration into a multifunctional patient support that can overcome the identified problems in the prior art and provide the desired functionality with a reduced level of human interaction.